TMCS was founded in 1967. Founded by CTM Ling Lee Hwa.
Ling Lee Hua as a primary schooler was educated in Binatang – Sarawak. He studied in Kwang Hua Junior Middle School in Sibu and was a boarder there. Ling Lee Hua’s rubber business also dated back to his childhood at Sibu. He already started to tap rubber while studying in Sibu, Sarawak. As a boarder, he got up at five in the morning to work in a rubber plantation, tapped about 300-400 trees for four hours, collected the latex for another two hours from nine to eleven, rushed home for a bath and walked for fifteen minutes to school.
He left Sibu to study in Kuching and, a few years later, contrary to his father’s wishes, came to Singapore to complete his Senior Cambridge education. Being a Christian, he was offered shelter in Foochow Methodist Church. Unfortunately upon completion of his Senior Cambridge Examinations in 1941, the Japanese came. Ling could only find a job as a carrier of wounded persons and later, as a burier of dead ones. The jobs were unpaid but compensated by the offer of free food.
After the war, he joined the government as a Clerk Grade III. In his job he learned the basic skills of filling out documents on import declaration, writing commercial letters and sending documents. He went back to Sarawak and, with a small capital of five thousand dollars, started to trade rubber.
As a Toastmaster, Ling is a first generation leader. He and others, like Cheng Tim Pin, Chong Loh Weng and Woo Tih Hsien, provided the leadership to the growth of the toastmaster movement here. He joined in 1957 under the banner of Pioneer Toastmasters Club. They met at Fort Canning Theatre.
In 1959, the club went into recession. Then a few of them got together again and started the present club – Toastmasters Club of Singapore #357, in 1967. Since then the club has gained from strength to strength.
